Why NASCAR Goes Left

The technical purists among you are going to argue that NASCAR goes left due to elements of centrifugal force. Some of you will even give long discourses proclaiming that the cause is due to torque.The centrifugal force believers state something like; NASCAR goes left because centrifugal forces compel them. When flushing a toilet in the Northern Hemisphere, the water will go to the right in a clockwise spin. By turning to the left, in a counter clockwise motion, you oppose the forces that would more naturally force you toward the wall. This makes the trip a little safer at such high speeds.

The torque supporters say that when a spinning object is pulled in a certain direction, forceful torque is created at right angles to that object. As an automobile crankshaft turns left, the force is pushed down to the track. If NASCAR ran right, there would be great problems because of fighting the left-handed torque and you could experience greater lift.

Next, we have the practical crowd who say that NASCAR goes left for logical reasons. They believe NASCAR goes left because the NASCAR drivers sit on the left. The inside groove is the preferred groove because it is the shortest way around the track, so reason dictates that NASCAR goes left so the drivers can see everything around them better.

Here come the traditionalists. It's racing tradition, they say, because horse races go left. The automobile followed the horse, it was the "horseless carriage", so when they decided to race these "horseless carriages" the races naturally went left.

There seem to be ways to disprove the more scientific assertions of centrifugal force and torque. Centrifugal force is generally beaten by the fact that there are racecourses in the Northern Hemisphere that go right and there doesn't seem to be too much trouble resultant of that. The torque arguments get very scientific, but the gist is that the wheels are more applicable to the torque equation than the crankshaft and the wheels add no relevance to why NASCAR goes left. NASCAR itself will tell you that they know of no engineering or scientific reason to go left.

There's really no way to argue the horse racing reasoning. Actually, oval racing is more an American thing than anywhere else. Other countries seem to prefer road racing, which goes right and left. In Britain, which is still the Northern Hemisphere by the way, auto racing is generally done in a clockwise fashion (to the right). They race horses in that direction there as well.

I believe the real reason NASCAR goes left is the reason supposedly explained by a stock car racing great, Junior Johnson. He is reported to have explained that when the moonshine runners in the Old South wanted to decide who was fastest among them, they would race in cornfields. Soon, so many people and cars were turning out for these races that the cornfields got too small. So the venues were moved to the fairgrounds, where horse races were held. Unlike the cornfields, horse-racing tracks had walls. There, it was found that if you raced the cars to the right, the slide (remember, these were dirt track races) would turn the car to the wall and the drivers couldn't see anything.

So, that's the reason NASCAR goes left.